Now it happened that I came to that same spot where she had
leaned and, flinging myself down, I fell to studying my
reflection in the water, even as she had done.
Heretofore, though I had paid scant heed to my appearance, I had
been content (in a certain impersonal sort of way), had dressed
in the fashion, and taken advantage of such adornments as were in
favor, as much from habit as from any set design; but now, lying
beside the brook with my chin propped in my hands, I began to
study myself critically, feature by feature, as I had never
dreamed of doing before.
Mirrored in the clear waters I beheld a face lean and brown, and
with lank, black hair; eyes, dark and of a strange brilliance,
looked at me from beneath a steep prominence of brow; I saw a
somewhat high-bridged nose with thin, nervous nostrils, a long,
cleft chin, and a disdainful mouth.
Truly, a saturnine face, cold and dark and unlovely, and thus
--even as I gazed--the mouth grew still more disdainful, and the
heavy brow lowered blacker and more forbidding. And yet, in that
same moment, I found myself sighing, while I strove to lend some
order to the wildness of my hair.
"Fool!" said I, and plunged my head beneath the water, and held
it there so long that I came up puffing and blowing; whereupon I
caught up the towel and fell to rubbing myself vigorously, so
that presently, looking down into the water again, I saw that my
hair was wilder than ever--all rubbed into long elf-locks.
Straightway I lifted my hands, and would have smoothed it
somewhat, but checked the impulse.
"Let be," said I to myself, turning away, "let be. I am as I am,
and shall be henceforth in very truth a village blacksmith--and
content so to be--absolutely content."
At sight of me Charmian burst out laughing, the which, though I
had expected it, angered me nevertheless.
"Why, Peter!" she exclaimed, "you look like--"
"A very low fellow!" said I, "say a village blacksmith who has
been at his ablutions."
"If you only had rings in your ears, and a scarf round your head,
you would be the image of a Spanish brigand--or like the man Mina
whose exploits The Gazette is full of--a Spanish general, I think."
"A guerrilla leader," said I, taking my place at the table, "and
a singularly cold-blooded villain--indeed I think it probable
that we much resemble one another; is it any wonder that I am
shunned by my kind--avoided by the ignorant and regarded askance
by the rest?"